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No settlement in sight for Thailand's south
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra appears more ready than previous governments
to negotiate a settlement of the Muslim insurgency in the south, but her
ability to end the violent stalemate is limited. Car bombings are thought to
reflect insurgent opposition to talks with an administration aligned to
Yingluck's brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, while the army opposes
decentralization. - Jason Johnson (May 22,
'12)
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Singapore, Hong Kong unite against
'locusts'
A fatal car smash after a speeding Ferrari jumped a red light in Singapore has
brought resentment against mainland Chinese into sharp focus, igniting a tirade
of abuse against "locusts" flooding the job and property markets. Inflamed
opinion spread with rumors that the "financial investor" dead at the wheel of
the limited edition sports car was the brother of a Chongqing mafia boss and
had been accused of money laundering in Hong Kong. - Augustine Tan
(May 22, '12)
Lebanon's new wild card: Shaker
al-Barjawi
The murder of prominent Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Wahed on Sunday, and
the street battles that followed, forced open a new chapter in Lebanon's
supercharged sectarian tensions and put the name of pro-Syria Arab Movement
Party leader Shaker al-Barjawi on everyone's lips. A civil war veteran with the
credentials needed to lead a Sunni militia serving as Hezbollah's proxy,
Barjawi is the new wild card in a polarized political mix. - Sami Moubayed
(May 22, '12)
INTERVIEW
The 'limitless horizon" of
capitalism
Costanzo Preve, born of Italian parents and with an Armenian grandmother, never
had it easy; he chose the path of uncompromising philosophy, and he begun to
recognize the historical failure of communism very early. He is also convinced
that globalization has produced a storm, an economic tsunami that has created a
series of common problems that in the past centuries did not exist. - Claudio
Gallo (May 22, '12)
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North Korea's 'organizational life'
in decline
Since the 1950s, weekly indoctrination and mutual criticism sessions have done
more to instill the greatness of the Kim family into the North Korean psyche
than state-run media, with local committees also more active in punishments
than political police. However, as Kim Il-sung's "national Stalinism" is eroded
and the black economy explodes, "organizational life" is increasingly seen as a
troublesome formality.
- Andrei Lankov (May 22, '12)
NATO agrees to Afghan timetable
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has approved at its Chicago summit plans
to hand over security in Afghanistan to local forces by mid-2013 and to
withdraw combat troops by 2014, pledging that Kabul "won't stand alone" and
that Afghan troops will be ready to battle the Taliban. Scant progress in
repairing ties with Pakistan suggests the withdrawal presents its own
challenges. (May 22, '12)
COMMENT
Ritualistic rhetoric in US
sanctions
President Barack Obama last week extended the United States' sanctions policy
on Myanmar under "national emergency" rules, despite the country's internal
reforms and the negligible threat it presents the US. The move follows a
concerted campaign by human-rights groups and expatriate Burmese to delay the
elimination of sanctions that far from helping achieve reform, just hurt
ordinary people.
- David I Steinberg (May 22, '12)
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SPEAKING FREELY
Missing links in the Arab
Spring
Such is the nature of revolutions: They are initiated by dreamers, carried out
by brave people, and taken over by opportunists. Several missing links in the
Arab revolution suggest the process of rebuilding may take a long time, and
require much patience and sensitivity among global powers wanting to see a
stable and democratic Middle East.
- Monte Palmer (May 22, '12)
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Iran nuclear talks gaining traction
Iran's leadership is confidently reassuring the public that any nuclear deal
with the "Iran Six" in Baghdad talks on Wednesday will not sacrifice the
national interest. Tehran has calculated that France's presidential change and
the eurozone crisis have sapped Europe's fighting spirit, with the need to keep
oil prices stable before November's election also cooling hawkish sentiment in
the United States. - M K Bhadrakumar (May 21,
'12)
Chen hands Beijing a hollow victory
As Chen Guangcheng settles in New York, Beijing can rest assured that its
efforts to minimize domestic fallout over the blind activist's escape have
worked well and that Chen is effectively silenced. However, this Pyrrhic
victory does nothing to address the deep-rooted corruption in local politics
that Chen suffered imprisonment and torture to agitate against.
- Kent Ewing (May 21, '12)
 THE
ROVING EYE
War and cheeseburgers
The new cheeseburger diplomacy, sealed at the Oval Office by President Barack
Obama and French President Francois Hollande, is supposed to save Greece,
revamp the eurozone and reignite the US economy, just in time for the November
US presidential election. It also means agreeing to talk some more with Iran.
- Pepe Escobar (May 21, '12)
Cold comfort for Japan-South Korea
ties
The intractable issue of compensation for women forced into sexual slavery
during Japan's World War II occupation of South Korea looks likely to undermine
the US-led united front against China's naval expansion and North Korea's
nuclear ambitions. Stirred in part by nationalist pressure in the run-up to
presidential elections in the South, the gap between the two sides' perceptions
on the sensitive issue remains as wide as it ever was.
- Kosuke Takahashi (May 21, '12)
 SPENGLER
What if Facebook is
really
worth $100 billion?
Facebook and its social media imitators diminish us by substituting
unpredictable human interaction with a pre-arranged display window whose
purpose is to block our gaze from the real person behind it. Sadly, the system
- and its raison d'etre to advertise one's conformity to commercial culture
while preserving the illusion of individuality - is worth a great deal of
money. And even sadder, it is unlikely to fail. (May
21, '12)
Taiwan's Ma plays it cool
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's re-inauguration speech on Sunday didn't
sketch a roadmap for unification with China, as some had expected. Ma instead
attacked Beijing's human-rights policy, praised his island's defense industry
and denied a cross-strait peace agreement was being planned, with critics
seeing Washington's hand at work.
- Jens Kastner (May 21, '12) |
 CHAN
AKYA
Penalty shoot-out -
the
political edition
English soccer team Chelsea emphatically showed that context and chance can
overcome all expectations in the sporting arena, a point relevant for leaders
of the Group of Eight nations engrossed by Saturday's European final when
applied to their own bitter political and economic games.
(May 22, '12)
New 'brics' in ASEAN's wall
Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations keen to join the big
economies of the developing world should make a priority, individually and
collectively, of dealing with the small "bric" - bureaucracy, regulation,
interventionism and corruption - if they want to better compete in 2015 and
beyond. - Curtis S Chin (May 22, '12)
The riddle of Scarborough Shoals
In the matter of the Scarborough Shoal mess, the Philippines started it and the
infamous Chinese nine-dash line encompassing almost the entire South China Sea
looks like an audacious claim drawn from an appetite for aggression. A closer
look reveals that there is some genuine method to Beijing's madness, and a
chance that gas and greed, rather than international law and principle, may
salvage peace in the South China Sea.
- Peter Lee (May 18, '12)
THE ROVING EYE
NATO occupies sweet home Chicago
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization hopes that If you can't beat them in
Pashtunistan, you can at least corral them in the home of the blues, with
NATO's Chicago summit planned to instill in members the "common values" behind
drone warfare and base expansion. As riot police lock down the city, some
partners likely fear they've married into the mob. - Pepe Escobar
(May 18, '12)
<IT WORLD>
Facebook floats
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is now officially worth close to US$20 billion
after successfully bringing off the initial public offering for his young
social network site. Fans keen to grab a piece of the company may have to pay
50% more than the initial price when the shares start trading Friday.
(May 18, '12)
Martin J Young surveys the week's developments in computing, science,
gaming and gizmos.
BOOK REVIEW
Cherry-picking from
China's
success
What the US Can Learn from China by Ann Lee
This book forces the reader to confront China's growth in the midst of
America's decline, drawing attention to the reasons US politics became too
self-serving, too short-sighted and too partisan. The author doesn't argue the
Chinese approach is flawless, but she does hold up China's single-minded
fixation on economic growth and a leadership process based on experience as
examples US policymakers must consider. - Benjamin Shobert
(May 18, '12)
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China
trade move
with Japan, Korea is
Asian game-changer
A trilateral free-trade agreement between China, Japan and South Korea, though
tough to achieve, will have significant effects on the global economy and on
the strategic environment in Asia, with the willingness to hold formal talks
nearly as important as the FTA itself. - Brendan O’Reilly
Beijing-Taipei highway
improbable but possible
The Taiwan government appears to be paying little notice to calls for a
transport tunnel to be built linking mainland China and Taiwan, yet serious
business interests advocating the daunting 124-kilometer challenge can look to
Beijing for support and a history of engineering triumphs. - Jens Kastner
Oil boost for Bangladesh
Two new oil discoveries in the north of Bangladesh will help relieve the
country's dire energy shortages and ease pressure on its balance of payments.
Production may begin next year, with the prospect of more finds to come in the
same area. - Syed Tashfin Chowdhury
THE BEAR'S LAIR
The looting of savers
Savers, for too long robbed by governments, should be allowed a risk-free
interest rate above the rate of inflation and offered a real return without
investing in the likes of Facebook. Such a change in monetary policy by
debt-burdened authorities probably won't happen until inflation gets seriously
out of hand. - Martin Hutchinson
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
The jig is up
One remarkable feature of JPMorgan Chase's recent US$3 billion-plus loss is
boss Jamie Dimon's lack of familiarity with the details in spite of prior
publicity on the bank's precarious position. Yet his incredible complacency
merely mirrors that of the wider financial world.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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How
to make China lend quicker, in secrecy
Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the prestigious American think-tank Council
of Foreign Relations, wrote last week that the Barack Obama administration has
quietly "altered its plans to move some US security resources from an
unthreatened Europe to an uncertain Asia" ... administration leaders realized
they had gratuitously offended European allies ... - M K Bhadrakumar
Obama upset over
Pakistan supply routes
The Russians have a favorite saying, "Where is the bumaga?" Maybe, NATO
secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen and US President Barack Obama never
heard of it. Bumaga, by the way, means the sheet of paper in Russian ...
- M K Bhadrakumar
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Uncle Sam's reluctance to go quietly into the night is understandable. Watching
China do to its neighbors what Amerika has routinely done with its "backyard
brothers" can only inspire envy.
H Campbell
United States
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